In the areas of sales and marketing, effective utilization of time generally is an important priority for marketers of goods and services to keep track of tasks/activities pertaining to clients and/or prospective clients (collectively referred to as “leads” herein). For instance, especially in the context of servicing a plurality of leads, marketers constantly have to juggle dealing with many different demands on their time. Marketers typically want to target leads that will result in the highest return on investment (ROI) for the marketer's time and efforts. However, managing a wide variety of leads at different stages of the buying process presents significant challenges for a marketer in allocating his or her time across the leads effectively.
Conventionally, different types of tools for effective time management of opportunities/tasks are available. Examples include various classes, books, websites, and application software (for desktop as well as mobile computers). Also, various off-the-shelf readymade means such as task planners, to-do lists, and the like are generally utilized by marketers of goods and services. However, these tools and means for time management are very generic and not tailored to a marketer's needs and objectives vis-à-vis specific industries of goods/services, specific market segments, specific marketing campaigns, etc. In addition to lacking custom or personalization features, such tools can be unnecessarily expensive and even cumbersome to use. Even worse, most tools for effective time management are unable to identify (automatically) potential business opportunities that are available for a marketer. Also, such tools fail to recognize which business opportunities are more important than others. In other words, a lead who is more interested in a marketer's goods/service will likely exhibit greater activity (e.g., with a marketer's website or marketing campaign) than a less interested lead.
For example, in a real estate marketing scenario, a potential home buyer X affiliated with a real estate broker might have been non-active (e.g., no replies to the real estate broker's emails or phone calls, no visits to the real estate broker's website) for the last few months but suddenly shows a spike in activity (e.g., by multiple visits to a real estate broker's website) in the last week. This spike in activity might indicate a buyer's renewed interest in buying a real estate property, and thus may represent an important business opportunity for the real estate broker's consideration. As a result, identification and prioritization of opportunities associated with this particular homebuyer (and other similar homebuyers) can benefit the real estate broker who can focus on activities or tasks that will result in the real estate broker being able to sell a home to the potential home buyer X. Furthermore, if there is another potential home buyer Y affiliated with the same real estate broker, but home buyer Y has shown a sustained but somewhat subdued interest in buying a home, the real estate broker might (for the immediate time) prioritize the business opportunity associated with home buyer X at a higher level than that associated with home buyer Y.
Therefore, there is a long-felt but unresolved need for a system or method that provides automated, time sensitive mechanisms of identifying and prioritizing a marketer's opportunities/tasks in connection with leads, or in connection with one or more goods/services in which leads have already shown interest, or are likely to show interest. Since opportunities/tasks are highly subjective and usually difficult to quantify, an ideal system should provide a computational method of generating prioritized opportunities/tasks based on measurable/monitorable components e.g., various types of lead engagements (such as interactions by leads with a marketer's website), various types of information provided by leads, etc.), or a lack thereof. A prioritized list comprising top opportunities/tasks would enable a marketer to attend to his or her respective opportunities/tasks in a timely fashion. For instance, marketers could choose to work from the top of the prioritized list and decide which opportunities/tasks to pursue. There is a further need for a system that can deliver prioritized lists to marketers via an online web interface, a mobile phone application, a SMS text message, a MMS text message, or any other means of delivery. Accordingly, based on the knowledge of prioritized opportunities, marketers can employ one or more strategies and tasks as appropriate. For example, the system should identify (on behalf of the marketer) the particular leads or goods/services that are important for the marketer to take immediate action, which ones can the marketer defer, which ones can the marketer ignore, and other such activities. An ideal system for generating and delivering prioritized lists of marketers' opportunities/tasks should be capable of being accessed and operated easily by marketers and salesmen having minimal technical skills.